2 THINGS I WISH I'D HAVE KNOWN BEFORE LAUNCHING MY PODCAST

Hi everyone,

It’s been just over one week since the launch of The Knowledge Spot, and I couldn’t be happier with the results. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and I’ve opened doors to interviews with some more amazing people. However, like most things in life, it was still far from a “perfect launch”. I know a lot of you are interested in starting your own podcast and blogs, so I want to share with you a couple things I’ve learned since launching The Knowledge Spot. Hopefully I can prevent you from making the same mistake I did.

1.Facebook ads MIGHT be a waste of money:

At first glance, they seemed worthwhile: my Facebook page earned about 50 more “likes” in just four days, my RSS feed doubled in traffic size, and my website was averaging about 150 visits per day. Sounds great right? Nope… the fact is that about 90% of this new traffic was coming from Ukraine.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no issue with Ukrainians, I just have issues with fake Ukrainian “click-bots” which MAY happened to be just about every single of these new “users” I paid for. What's interesting is that when I cross-reference every single one of these Ukrainian accounts, they seem real.Still, in the back of my head, I keep hearing "Too good to betrue". Ukraine here's your call to action: Comment on this blog post and prove your realness!

My entire Facebook ad campaign may have been wasted on these bots, but thank god it only cost me about $30. The bigger issue is that now my podcast and website metrics may be totally inaccurate. It’s become nearly impossible for me to gauge the level of interest in my content, because Ukrainian click-bots may have inflated all the numbers.

I think most of these people are fluent in English.

2.iTunes is not nearly as popular as it was a few years ago:

iTunes has been good for me…The podcast is currently ranked #51 in the New and Noteworthy section for all podcast, and in the Health category, The Knowledge Spot is ranked #3. With such high-ranking and priority featuring, you’d think The Knowledge Spot would be on the verge of some serious popularity.

Not really….at least not yet. Here’s why:

iPhones used to be the shit. If you had a smart phone in 2009, it was almost certainly an iPhone. In 2015, things are different. According to my metrics, roughly 54%of my mobile traffic comes from Android users.

Android users probably don't actively use iTunes

So, why is this important? Because Android users are much less likely to have an iTunes account(at least one they actively use).

Thus, marketing your podcast through iTunes, isn’t nearly as effective as it used to be, because it’s reaching a MUCH smaller audience than in the past.

I hope at least a few people out there will benefit from the lessons I've learned so far. Please share your own lessons and comments below!